Summit Aftermath – My 5 Highlights

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I’ve been to a lot of conferences over the last year, as part of my job as an Atlassian Ambassador in Europe. Actually, I’ve been to our very own user conference, Atlassian Summit in San Francisco. Last year’s Summit was definitely one of my highlights and this years lived up to the hype. Working from Germany makes the event extra special. It is a fantastic opportunity to meet with other Atlassians, Marketplace Vendors and customers. Before I forget my highlights, I wanted to share ’em:

The Keynotes
The attendees summed it up best when they told me: “The keynotes looked more like a rock concert”. A great presentation style, on an impressive stage with some very interesting updates about our products, made for some impressive keynotes. My personal takeaways were the Jira inline editing features, the Confluence mobile theme for the upcoming Confluence release and the exciting focus on DVCS, in particular Stash. I should not forget the guest speakers that featured in the keynotes: Jeff Ma and Bob Kerner from the NYSE Euronext who both had amazing stories.

The Speakers
This year Atlassian invited some famous speaker like Jeff Atwood, Pamela Fox, Eric Ries, Dave Thomas, Michael Lopp. But they didn’t overshadow the amazing talks from Atlassian staff and customers who all did really great presentations. I didn’t see a single presentation that bored me at all – which is what I typically expect at a conference.

The Socialising
This is what I miss the most at a lot of conferences. Areas where I can sit down and chat in a relaxed atmosphere with other attendees or speakers and reflect on a talk I just heard. These areas were also good to quickly reply to some emails. Atlassian set up a bunch of lounges at the Summit: the Guru Lounge (where you could meet the Atlassian gurus), the Speaker Decompression area (where you could chat with the speakers), plus lots of chairs, couches and tables to hang out around.

The Food Trucks
There are two type of foods at conferences: you get a small lunchbox (and stay hungry) or there is a big buffet (and you get tired afterwards). At the Summit they knocked it out of the park with 10 local food trucks serving unique meals: Vietnamese sandwiches, burgers, salads and falafel and more, so the attendees could pick their favorite. This was a real unique experience. It was brilliant!

The Small Things

badges with the conference program printed on them

a mobile schedule for the conference, running on Confluence (with the new mobile theme)

a great party on Day 2 with an amazing view over the bay and Bay Bridge

the wifi worked!

all day long soft drinks, juices, iced teas and coffees

and much more!

Couldn’t make it to Summit this year? Watch the video! Hope to see you there in 2013!

Check out the Summit talks on video

There are tons of videos out there from the Summit. If you couldn’t make it or you missed a talk they are now available here and we keep adding more. But you don’t want to miss these: